A handful of European countries — Finland, Holland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany — have scrapped their survey-based censuses in favour of population counts that rely heavily on an amalgam of administrative data. Sometimes, that data is combined with information from sample surveys.

“If you look around the world, particularly in Europe, you’ll see many countries have moved away from going out with a survey the way we do,” Smith told the Citizen.

“They’ve said there are data files available that we can use to effectively count the population: we don’t need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and bother every household in the country to count the population.”

Other national statistical agencies, including those in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, are now exploring whether to follow suit.

“Essentially, that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said. “We’re asking, ‘Could we get there? Could we actually, without bothering Canadians, do as well? Be able to obtain the same level of accuracy or better than the current survey-based census?’”

Plans for a virtual census remain at the discussion stage. Statistics Canada will need the help of other federal departments, provinces and territories to make such a model work, but there are significant administrative and privacy hurdles to overcome.

“I would say, given all that would likely have to change, we’re probably two censuses away before we could do it – if we could find the solutions to be able to implement it,” said Smith.

The federal Statistics Act requires a census of population every five years, but it is silent on how that count is to be conducted.

The potential savings are enormous.

Holland uses a virtual census that links a series of national and municipal databases to develop a detailed picture of its 16.7 million people. Dutch statisticians cross-reference the country’s population register — everyone in Holland must obtain a citizen number to open a bank account or obtain health services — with databases that deal with housing, pensions, social services, employment and taxes. Statisticians combine that data with information from sample surveys to produce its virtual, or register-based, census.

It costs a fraction of a traditional census: the 2011 virtual census in Holland cost $2 million, down from the $143 million spent on the 1971 census.

In 2011, Statistics Canada hired 30,000 part-time enumerators during the data collection phase of the census to conduct personal interviews in select areas. The census requires seven years to prepare, research, process and publish; the last cycle, including the National Household Survey, cost Canadian taxpayers $652 million.

There are several significant problems to overcome before a virtual census can be introduced.

The principal hurdle is that Canada, unlike some European countries, does not assign a personal identification number to every citizen, which means that there’s no single database that holds information about every Canadian.

As a result, Statistics Canada will have to combine different sets of data to find everyone or else launch a new registration system. But federal and provincial privacy commissioners have already expressed concern about the idea of issuing personal ID numbers — and building a new population register — to support a register-based census.

Smith said the agency may be able to build a robust, virtual population register by gaining access to new databases. The income tax database provides a potential starting point, he noted, since it holds information for about 95 per cent of the population.

The other problem is mobility. Birth, death and immigration records give statisticians a good idea of how many people were added to the Canadian population in any given year — but not a good picture of how many left the country or moved between provinces.

Statistics Canada requires a high level of precision about who lives where because the census is used to apportion seats in the House of Commons and distribute federal transfer payments.

“We have to know not only that the person exists, we need to know their age, and precisely – on a particular day – where they were living. That’s the hard part,” Smith said. “But they are solvable problems.”

In Holland, for instance, it’s mandatory for citizens to register address changes with the government.

Exploiting new technology and big data has become a strategic priority for Statistics Canada as it seeks to do more with fewer resources. The agency is actively experimenting with digital questionnaires, online surveys and Internet data scraping to reduce costs and improve information gathering. It’s also relying more each year on “administrative data:” about 40 per cent of the agency’s work now depends on public and private sector databases.

The national statistics agency has about 50 programs underway to extend its use of administrative data.

The Statistics Act gives the agency broad access to government records for statistical purposes.

Smith conceded that the growing reliance on administrative data raises enormous privacy issues, but he insisted that the statistics agency operates within strict limits.

“That’s a very strong feature of this legislation: it does gives us that open door to administrative data, but it also holds us to account for maintaining confidentiality,” he said. “As a statistical agency, I’m not interested in you as an individual: I’m interested in information about you so I can produce aggregates, trends and relationships.”

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